


To Love At All

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Fire Emblem: Thracia 776
Genre: Drabble Collection, I Love You, Multi, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 05:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12550424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: Collection of ficlets from the tumblr prompt list "The Way You Said I Love You." Mostly Jugdral & Valentia but can expand into other Fire Emblem worlds depending on the prompts I get.





	1. Not Said to Me, Oifey/Fee

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the C.S. Lewis quote "To love at all is to be vulnerable." The relevance of said quote should be evident after a couple of chapters...

“Love you, Annand,” she says as she combs out the mane of her pegasus. 

A strand of hair, fine and transparent as the fluff of a crown-flower pod, floats out of Annand’s stall and falls across the withers of Oifey’s charger. Desert King has a spotless white coat and a mane and tail the pale gold of a winter’s dawn, but even the finest horse in bred Northern Isaach is a coarse and homely creature beside Annand. King’s mane might as well be a thatch of straw compared to the strand of silk that Oifey retrieves and winds around his fingers as he listens to Fee coo endearments to her winged companion.

-x-

“Love you!” 

She shouts it to her friends, swift-fingered Patty and fleet-footed Lene. The girls fling “love” around with abandon in each other’s company. At times Oifey wonders if the young ladies of his generation did the same, if he’s on the wrong side of a canyon carved by time, or upbringing, or both. He hadn’t been paying enough mind to the ways of young ladies then, but he thinks he remembers even poor common Silvia holding back on “love” as though the word were sacrosanct.

Fee and Patty and Lene love everything— a new bracelet, Lene’s latest dance steps, the small frosted cakes Patty’s somehow whipped from nothing. Oifey supposes it’s healthy that they can take such joy in trifles, even if he can’t speak the same language.

-x-

“I love you. Be careful,” he hears her whisper to Ced, as the royal heirs to Silesse stand beneath the ruined walls that cut Miletos off from the rest of the peninsula. They clasp hands for a moment, then go their separate ways, Fee to take Annand on another reconnaissance mission, Ced to unleash his holy tome against whatever enemy the Empire has in wait for them. They remind him of Sigurd and Ethlyn, a brother and sister bound to one another in the highest and most pure degree, with none of the disturbing facets to their bond that Oifey’s seen elsewhere. At least that’s what Oifey thinks when he isn’t second-guessing himself. He never had a sister or a brother after all, only people in his life that were almost that, just as he almost had friends, almost thought himself on the verge of his own romance.

-x-

“I was wondering if you could tell me something,” she says to him by the sea-cliffs of Chalphy. 

Standing in the marine winds that ruffle her hair and clothes, she looks as ethereal as her green-eyed pegasus. There is none of the merriment she shows with her friends, none of the fancy she reveals in her conversations with Annand. He sees Erinys, for a moment, in the solemn set of her mouth and wide earnest eyes.

Oifey doesn’t want to see Erinys, really. He forces himself to look past the illusion, to see the young woman standing there asking _something_ of him now. 

“Anything,” he says, because in spite of everything he’s not beyond making rash promises, because each hesitant question coming from her lips is almost as precious to him as that word given to brothers and girl-friends and cherished winged companions.

In a world of _almost_ , a genuine something is more than enough.


	2. As a Hello, Brigid/Finn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt was filled using my baseline headcanon for how Brigid and Finn meet in the fic-verse where they get together. Said fic-verse also features Lex/Tailtiu so Lex's being there is not happenstance.

“Hang on, Padre” she shouted over her shoulder at the priest. He was tending to the sliced arm of the little mage whose thunder spells had taken out some of her most ferocious men. “Looks like the cavalry’s coming to save us.”

Or not. The two riders approaching could’ve been mercenaries brought in by her mutinous crew to finish the job, but something in Brigid’s gut said otherwise. For one, the mutineers weren’t that smart. For another…

“Tailtiu!” the rider in the ridiculous horned helmet shouted across the battlefield. 

The wounded mage raised her good arm and shouted back, and Brigid’s lips curved in a smile. Her improbable allies brought some improbable friends. The two riders charged even as Brigid held her ground, sending her arrows into the line of pirates between her and the mystery reinforcements. One rider had a mighty axe and the other one brandished one hell of a swift lance and by the time little Tailtiu was on her feet again, Brigid and the lancer were frozen in a standoff above the still-breathing heap of the last of the mutineers. 

He moved first. Brigid watched the barbed head of his lance, already dark with the blood of her former men, finish the deed.

“Thanks,” she offered, not yet lowering her bow. She’d had enough betrayals for one day.

Brigid wondered if he was one of the foreign princes who’d been tearing up Agustria for kicks during the last year. Unlike the horned-helmet guy, this one wasn’t wearing enough armor for a real battle, and the gold curlicues on his pauldrons and the silver embroidery on his coat made for an almost hilarious contrast with the gore spattered across one cheek. He was practically a kid, she realized, still in the peach-fuzz stage of existence and staring at her with huge eyes beneath the thick azure bangs.

“I love you!”

Brigid blinked.

“That’s a strange way to say hello,” she replied, her eyes now locked with his as she tried to figure this odd young man out. “Do I… know you from somewhere?


	3. When We Lay Together on the Fresh Spring Grass, Fergus/Karin

“Man, I’m beat. Good thing we’re sitting this one out.”

He and Karen were following orders to rest for the day, which meant lazing around on a patch of soft new grass beneath a sky that changed every couple of minutes from gray to blue to a patchwork of puffy clouds.

“That one looks kinda like your pony,” Fergus said as he pointed to one cloud that bore a resemblance to a white horse’s head with a streaming mane. 

She snorted and pointed out how graceful Hermes was compared with the cloud-pony, how intelligent his eyes were, how much spirit he had.

“Yeah, yeah. You love that critter.” Fergus pulled one especially thick blade of grass out of the damp earth and began to chew on the white end of its stalk.

"I love you.”

She said it low, said it soft, but said it still.

“Eh?” Fergus, the grass stalk between his teeth, rolled his head in Karen’s direction. She was staring up at the sky, her big eyes oddly sad. Fergus sat up and removed the grass from his mouth.

“Look, I know your prince gave you something special to hang onto."

"It's not like that,” she said without moving her head. The clouds painted their reflections over her eyes. “ _He_ ’s not like that.”

“Yeah… well, I can’t be your ‘like that’ either.” Fergus almost said he couldn’t be her prince, but he stopped himself, because even saying that word aloud would get him one step closer to the disaster he was pretty sure awaited him if he lingered too long around these parts. “Sorry.”

“Think about it,” she said, and it almost hurt to see Karen this somber. “We’re not done here yet.”


	4. Over Your Shoulder, Lewyn/Finn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The requester said I could go with the generation of my choice for this one. I opted for Gen 2, specifically Lewyn's odd in-person visit to Leonster during the events of FE4's Chapter 6.

“So, you all just hold out until Seliph gets here with a fresh army at his back. Abandon the castle if you have to, hide out in trees like birds if you have to, just hang on. We’re about to turn the corner on this one.”

Lewyn understands that’s a tall order, but Finn’s already managed seventeen years against impossible odds, so what’s another couple of weeks? Sure enough, there’s not a trace of hesitation or protest or any other normal reaction in Finn’s response, just the “Yes, milord” that comes out the way it always did. Lewyn raises one finger in caution. 

“I told you once already not to call me that.”

“Yes…” 

And it’s this request that makes Finn’s pupils dilate just a little, that makes his lips compress ever so faintly in protest, because now Lewyn’s put Finn outside the neatly structured world in which he operates. To Finn even the worst king on this planet is a king and deserves those accolades. A king is a king even living under a hedgerow, even when you’ve spent the better part of your life planning to separate him from his life and his throne, and so Finn’s not yet ready to deal with Lewyn-as-he-is.

“Right. So, I’ll see you in a few weeks,” says Lewyn as he turns to leave.

_(And he remembers how the tail of his old striped scarf once caught Finn in the face during a well-timed exit)_

“Wait. Lewyn…” 

Lewyn’s ears catch the almost imperceptible sound of a title, inserted before his name in unbending habit and then quickly bitten off. 

“I’ve got to get back to Seliph,” he says without glancing Finn’s way.

“But did you not plan to meet Prince Leif and the others? Their morale would also benefit from your presence. Prince Leif is eager to hear of his cousin—”

“No, I just felt like coming here all this way to see you for an hour or so,” Lewyn says to cut Finn off, and then he listens with perverse enjoyment to the seconds of rattled silence that follow. 

He can envision every detail of Finn’s reaction without looking back— the way that surprise has let blackness swallow up the color of his eyes so only a thin ring of electric blue shows, the way he’s set his back teeth together to hold his composure, the exact way he’s placed his hands and set his boots against the stones.

“To what do I owe this particular honor?”

The sound of strangled offense in Finn’s voice is delightful. _Now_ Lewyn glances back over his shoulder.

“I love you,” he says— lightly, almost insolently, and now he has no choice but to warp himself out of the ruins of Leonster because with that line crossed he’s gone off his script and can’t predict what’s coming next.


	5. In a Way I Can’t Return, Forsyth/Python

Kicking Desaix’s ass in his own hideout is cause for a celebration. The old traitor had a lot of treats squirreled away in his fortress besides the oranges they’d all been tripping over back at the capital and it makes for the best feast any of them have enjoyed since they lost the castle in the first place. Everybody finds their own way to keep the party rolling as long as they can— Python’s pretty sure not a one of them has any doubts about what Sir Clive and his lady are doing when they withdraw for the evening, and it seems like just about everyone else manages to slip away in twos or threes to do whatever they fancy.

That leaves him and Forsyth amid the wreckage of the party. Forsyth’s had enough that he’s actually flushed. His eyes are bright and every move he makes is surprisingly limber without the tension that grips him whenever he senses the eyes of Alm or Clive or Lukas upon him. 

“Hey, Fors…”

Python flicks his tongue over his dry lips. It’d be awful nice to find a cozy storeroom with a heap of fur blankets and a pile of stout boxes to bar against the door. Forsyth lurches against him and pulls him into a crushing embrace, and in that moment Python thinks he’s going to get lucky.

“I love you.”

It’s mumbled into his shoulder, and for a split second Python almost convinces himself that it didn’t happen or that he can make it not happen. Fors is drunk, he’s drunk, he can pretend he heard nothing.

“Yeah,” is all he can say, looking up through the strands of Forsyth’s hair into the timbers of the ceiling. The idea of finding a room fizzles out like the bubbles in a smashed cask of ale. 

Daylight finds them among trampled cheese curds and empty bottles, just two old friends passed out after a bender.


End file.
